AN: Rewrite of The Avenger's Daughter that I've been promising for more than a year... so sorry it's been so long. Enjoy. First chapter is twice the length of the original with a combination of old work and new.

Tony Stark was having a hell of a day; five years in and he still wasn't used to the swing of running Stark Industries. Truth be told, it had never been Tony's plan to take the CEO position in the first place, let alone at twenty one just after losing both his mother and father. Howard Stark had been both an engineer and a leader, Tony would be content to stay within a workshop and develop the weapons and various other Stark Industries merchandise. His life has taken him in another direction, and for all of the projects he does personally, there are twice as many tasks that he must perform as CEO.

Today though, was worse than usual for Tony; he woke up late because he was up late making adjustments on the schematics of a sniper rifle for the US Army's weapons contract and had to rush to Stark tower for a meeting with the department heads, he found a scratch on his favourite car on the way out the door, and to top it off, he just spilt the coffee Pepper had handed him moments before, all over the floor of his office as soon as he walked into the room. Dropping his head to his chest with a low groan, he shuffled his way across the room to his desk. Flopping back into his desk chair, he hit the button to activate his intercom.

"Pepper, I need someone to come and mop up my coffee." He asked with a heavy sigh. "And a new very large coffee."

"I'll send Helena right in, Mr. Stark." The bright voice of Virginia 'Pepper' Potts sounded from the intercom's small speaker. Pepper was a tall, willowy woman with bright copper hair and a no-nonsense attitude that she used to her advantage as Tony's personal assistant. Nothing would be done anywhere near on time if not for Pepper, Tony was sure.

Tony began to organize all of the paper work that he had let build up over the last few days while he was prepping for the meeting with the department heads, with even less enthusiasm than what he usually had for paper work. The files and folders of information had grown to the point that they were spilling from his inbox into his outbox and down onto his desk proper. Once he finished sorting the stack back into ins and outs he began reading the first folder on the stack.

He was halfway through a budget review for a minor project in the medical research department when a soft knock sounded on the large oak doors of his office. "It's open." Tony said without looking up from the paper he was reading. The project head was requesting an increase in budget for their work; Tony wasn't even quite sure why the file was in his hands to begin with, budget allotments were handled by the department heads.

Helena was a small woman; she barely hit five foot and was the kind of slim that people would say that would blow away with a strong wind. Her size however, was not something you should judge her by, as she was smart as a whip and she had a sharp tongue when needed. When she pushed her way into Tony's office her held a mop in one hand that she was using to push the steaming wheeled bucket and a large mug of coffee in the other.

Helena had worked for Stark Industries for four and a half years and had quickly become one of the very few who would and could deal with Tony Stark long enough to clean his office. She, like Pepper, was able to take his abrasive attitude and take him down a peg when needed. The pair had a mutual understanding with each other, and had gotten to know each other quite well over the years; they were very comfortable together in their roles of employer and employee. Helena left the mop by the spill and carried the steaming mug to the man behind the desk. "Your coffee, Tony." Helena said softly with just a hint of an accent as she set the cup down on a coaster.

"Thank you Helena, you are a life saver." Tony said with a cheeky smile.

Helena let out a laugh and went back to the mop to clean the spill. "I bet you say that to all the cleaning staff."

As Helena made quick work of the coffee spill she and Tony chatted lightly about his projects and her daughter. Helena was mopping the area around the mess for any leftover splatter when a quick sharp knock sounded on the door of the office. Helena set the mop into the bucket and opened the door to reveal two uniformed security guards and a small child clutching a book nearly as big as she was. The men paid Helena no mind as they shoved passed her into the room and addressed their employer.

"Sir, we found this child in the staff cafeteria, she refuses to speak in English." The first of the men said.

The second nodded his head and added, "I have no idea what language she's even speaking."

Tony had looked up when the knock had sounded and he stared incredulously at the security guards. "Wha-?"

"Toriana! I told you to stay in the locker room!" Helena said harshly in Dutch.

"Mama, there were too many people in there." The girl responded. "They were watching me."

"Um, Helena? What's going on? Could you explain the situation, in English, please?" Tony asked both exasperated and confused. In all the years he had known Helena, he hadn't ever seen her speak in any language other than English, though he had known she did.

"Mr. Stark, this is my daughter, Toriana. She was supposed to stay in the locker room and read quietly. She was suspended from school yesterday for getting in a fight with another girl and I couldn't find a baby sitter to watch her. I have no family and her father isn't around." Helena began to wring her hands together nervously. "I promise she will be no problem, she will just read. But I couldn't leave her at home. She's only six."

Tony nodded without saying anything and turned to the security officers. "Don't you have a patrol route you should be on?" The two men shared a look before exiting the office and letting the door close loudly behind them.

Tony turned back to Helena when the door was shut. "She can stay here with me so long as she is quiet."

"Thank you, Mr. Stark." Helena said with a large smile.

The girl had her mother's stature, even at age six it was obvious, but she was nearly completely opposite beyond that. Where Helena had dark hair as straight as can be, Toriana was blonde with huge ringlets hanging around her head in a halo. Helena had dark green eyes that bordered on brown, yet Toriana had ice blue eyes. Helena had a natural tan to her skin, but her daughter had rich creamy white skin with hardly a blemish beyond a dark purple bruise on her left cheek and a black eye.

"You will be staying her with Mr. Stark, keep quiet and read your book. Try not to bother him; he's a very busy man." Helena told her daughter seriously. "Be good, Toriana, I will be back to get you at five."

"Okay mama, I'll be good." Toriana answered with a smile, though it didn't reach her eyes. Toriana carried her overly large book to the window that was nearly floor to ceiling with a low ledge and sat down with her book in front of her. She placed herself along the windows so that should anyone else come into the office, they wouldn't be able to see her unless they were nearly on top of Tony's desk.

Helena's two way radio crackled to life as she was paged to a conference room on the floor below to clean up the debris from a meeting that had an explosive ending. Helena had left the room, mop in tow with another quiet word to Toriana to be good for Tony. Tony turned back to his paperwork and hunched over the desk to get it done once she was gone.

A few hours passed unassumingly, the office was silent save for the flipping of pages and the shuffling of papers, and the occasional grumble about having too much paper work from the dark haired man behind the desk. Just before noon Pepper called to ask if Tony wanted lunch he agreed to lunch, but turned down the offer of his usual fare and asked instead for enough to two, of something that was kid appropriate.

At twelve o'clock on the dot, Pepper came into the office high heels clicking sharply on the marble tiled floor carrying a take-out bag from a burger joint not far from the Stark Building and another large stack of files. She placed her burdens on the glass desk in front of Tony and raised her eye brow at her boss. "Lunch for two, child friendly as requested and these are from the investors."

"She's Helena's daughter. Thank you for lunch." Tony said, but didn't elaborate further as he tucked the file he was working on away and pulled the paper bag towards himself. Pepper raised her eye brow farther at Tony before left the room when Tony ignored her and turned to face Toriana. "Okay kid, lunch time."

The small girl looked up from her book and smiled brightly at the man. "Thank you De heer Stark." Toriana set her book down on the ledge beneath the window and made her way to the desk. She climbed onto the chair opposite from Tony. Tony presented the girl with a children's order of a burger and a small fry along with a small carton of chocolate milk.

The pair ate in silence for a few minutes before Tony asked the question he was dying to ask since he spotted the bruises on the girl. "What happened to you?" Tony grimaced at the blunt question, but he really wasn't known for his tact.

Toriana's eyes widened slightly before she blushed and looked at her lap. "I got into a fight with one of the girls in my class. They don't like me because I'm six, and they're ten. I was trying to ignore them, but they said that I was a freak and that's why my vader left me and mama. I hit her, but she's bigger than me and she hit harder."

Tony sat stunned for a moment. He had known it to have been the result of a fight with another child; her mother had said as much when she told him that Toriana was suspended. What he didn't expect was for her to be in a grade so much higher than what she should have been, nor the reason behind the fight. Helena and Tony rarely spoke of her daughter, despite him knowing of her, it was a line they had never crossed; he didn't even know her name until today. He also knew that her father wasn't in the picture by no fault of Helena or Toriana. Helena had told him that Toriana's father's father was very traditional and very strict, and the man didn't accept either Helena or Toriana and forced his son to abandon his family.

"Well, she shouldn't have said that, it isn't true. You aren't a freak, just smart. Like me. I skipped grades when I was your age too." Toriana smiled shyly at Tony and the pair lapsed back into silence as they continued to eat their meals. "What language are you and your mom speaking?"

"Dutch, Oma and Opa came from the Netherlands, so it was my mine and mama's first language. I learned English at the same time, she learned English in school." Toriana explained.

"I see. So what are you reading?" Tony questioned, he figured that if she was here, he may as well know what she was occupying herself with.

"It's a book on world mythology; I've been reading the section on Norse mythology." Toriana explained between bites. "My mama always tells me stories about Thor and Odin and Asgard."

Tony nodded and the pair finished their lunches, before they went back to their previous activities, Toriana shyly requested a bathroom break. Tony, panicking buzzed Pepper through the intercom. "Could you, uh, take Toriana to the little girls' room?"

"Yes Tony, I can take Toriana to the little girls' room." She replied sardonically. Moments later the office door swung open and Pepper popped her head in, "Toriana? I'll take you to the bathroom."

"Thank you." Toriana answered and scurried off.

When the pair returned, Tony was once again buried in his work and he barely acknowledged them. The afternoon passed much the same as the morning, though there were small breaks of conversation between the man and child. Toriana would ask Tony to explain the meaning of a word or phrase from the book that she didn't understand, and Tony would tell Toriana about some of the more kid friendly projects that Stark Industries was working on.

When Helena returned to the office at five o'clock Tony was hunched over Toriana pointing at something on a page of the book before them and quietly explaining the meaning of the word capitulate. When Tony had finished his explanation and stood from his hunched position Helena spoke. "I hope she wasn't a bother Tony."

"Not at all," Tony waved his hand dismissively. "She read, we ate lunch, chatted and then she read."

Helena nodded and began thanking the man profusely. "Thank you so much, Tony. I promise it won't happen again.

"It's really not a problem Helena, she's a good kid." Tony insisted. "If you come into this situation again, just call Pepper to make sure I'm in the office and drop her off."

Mother and daughter left Tony's office minutes later after cheery goodbyes between Tony and Toriana.

Toriana spent the next two days of her suspension in Tony's office despite Helena's promise that she wouldn't be back. The first day had Tony and Toriana back in his office, him still wading his way through the backup of paperwork and Toriana brought in her homework assignments that were due when she returned from her suspension. The second day was split between his office and his workshop six floors below. Lunches were no longer nearly silent, Tony and Toriana would chat about what she was working on and Tony would try to explain what she was learning in more depth than her fifth grade teacher was able to with a class of thirty children.

Over the next few months, Tony and Helena added Toriana to the list of topics they regularly spoke about when they met in the building. Toriana began coming to Stark Industries every day after school let out at 3:30 and doing her homework in Tony's office at a miniaturized version of Tony's desk that he had created for her. Instead of being picked up from school by the teenager who lived in the apartment below Helena and Toriana's, she was picked up by Tony's driver, Happy Hogan. Within six months Tony went from De heer Stark to omm Tony to Toriana.